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BARLEY WATER
Add two ounces pearl barley to half pint boiling water; let simmer five minutes, drain and add two quarts boiling water; add two ounces sliced figs, and two ounces stoned raisins; boil until reduced to a quart; strain for drink.
A thin sweet grain drink from the invalid-cookery chapter, and one of the few nineteenth-century sickroom preparations that still tastes good. The whole thing hinges on the first step: the short simmer and drain removes the raw, dusty note from the barley, and skipping it gives a cloudy, starchy drink.
- The quantities in cupsTwo ounces of pearl barley is a scant 1/3 cup. Two ounces of sliced dried figs and two ounces of stoned (pitted) raisins are each roughly 1/3 to 1/2 cup, depending on how tightly packed.
- Do not skip the blanch and drainThe barley goes into just half a pint of boiling water for five minutes, then that water is thrown away. This is the step that keeps the finished drink clean-tasting rather than gluey.
- How long the reduction takesTwo quarts down to one quart is 45 minutes to an hour at a steady low boil in an uncovered pan. Judge by volume, not the clock, and top up if it reduces too fast before the barley has softened.
- "Stoned" raisinsSimply pitted. Most raisins sold today are seedless already, so use them as they come.
- StrainingA fine sieve is enough; press the fruit lightly against it to get body and sweetness into the liquid. Cheesecloth gives a clearer drink if you want it near-transparent.
- Sweetening and flavourThe recipe adds no sugar at all; the figs and raisins are the only sweetness in it. Lemon peel turns up in some other period barley waters, and a strip dropped in for the last ten minutes lifts this one considerably.
- Yield and keepingOne quart, about four servings. Serve warm from the pan or chilled; refrigerate and use within two days, as it separates and sours quickly. Shake or stir before pouring.
Barley water is a very old European sickroom drink, prescribed as a soothing, easily swallowed source of nourishment long before anyone could explain why. Chapters of "Food for the Sick" were common in American household manuals of the 1870s and 1880s, when nursing happened at home and the cook was expected to produce gruels, beef teas, wine whey and barley water on demand. The addition of figs and raisins marks it as a sweetened, strengthening version rather than the plain barley-and-water given for fever, and a comparable formula survives commercially in British bottled lemon barley water. Pearl barley itself is barley with the hull and bran polished off, which is what allows it to give up its starch in an hour of boiling.